by Rachel Hruza
I reached back, up and under my shirt, and loosened the top strap of my brace so I could breathe a bit easier.
“You wear a back brace?”
Blinking back tears, I raised my head in the direction of the voice. Immediately I wanted to throw up. Jenny Henderson was standing in the middle of the locker room, staring at me. We looked at each other for several tense moments, until she started to smile and opened her mouth to say something.
I pulled my backpack off the floor and carried it in my arms, wheels and all. It was pretty heavy, but I managed to stumble out of the locker room without responding to Jenny.
I ran down the hallway as fast as my braced torso and tired legs could carry me, flopping back and forth from the weight of my broken backpack. I tripped up the stairs and collapsed. I heard footsteps behind me.
“Ouch!” I said, my right elbow and left knee colliding with the hard, stone steps.
Pushing myself to my feet, I ran out the door into the already dimming sunlight. It was cold out, but I didn’t have a choice.
I walked home, carrying my stupid, broken backpack, cursing Isaac Newton and my back brace the whole way.
CHAPTER 16
A Rock in the Midst of Diamonds
I refused to go to school the next day. I lay in bed until my mother came up to drag me out of it. Charity had heard from her friends Brendan had dumped me, so my family assumed I was heartbroken over some boy and didn’t want to face him.
In reality, I was terrified of everyone. They would all know I wore a back brace now because Jenny Henderson would tell them. She was the biggest gossip in school, even more so than Megan, and she had been trying to find out a secret about me. Now she had discovered it, and my life as a somewhat popular but socially awkward seventh grader was over—except for the socially awkward part.
Mom tugged my pillow from under my head. I nabbed it back and threw it over myself. “Ahmnagongtscoo!”
“What?” Mom asked. I felt my bed shift as she sat down on the edge of it.
I lifted my pillow, just a millimeter. “I’m not going to school,” I said and slammed the pillow back over my face.
“Look, honey,” Mom said, “Brendan was a nice young man, but you’ll find nicer. You’re too young to date anyway, so in all actuality, it doesn’t matter.”
I thrust the pillow onto my lap. “I don’t care about Brendan!” I did, but that wasn’t what I was worried about; he already knew I had a brace.
“Well, then what’s wrong, Tru?”
I’d always been able to tell my parents everything. But they didn’t seem to understand how much I didn’t want people to know about my back brace. I knew if I said Jenny had found out and now the whole school would know, my mom would just say I was overreacting.
Mom sighed. I was making everyone late. “You know, you’re going to have to go back eventually, so what does it matter if it’s today?”
I thought about it. I sighed loudly and then conceded. “Good point.”
“Get dressed and I’ll send Charity to help you with Herman. She can pull it tighter than I can.”
I rolled my eyes at her use of Harold’s chosen nickname. “It’s a brace, Mother. It doesn’t have a name.”
“Right. Sorry.”
After Mom left, I found a hot pink hoodie I hadn’t worn yet and pulled it on, knowing it would cover my brace entirely. With my extra-large jeans tied with my trusty shoestring and the pink hoodie hiding it all, I looked pretty decent. Charity walked in as I was posing in front of our mirror.
“Let’s do this. The bus will be here in two minutes.” She cinched me up and I followed her downstairs to grab a yogurt for the road.
“No eyeliner today?” she asked.
“Mr. Landers noticed it, and I figured if he’s able to notice a difference, it might not be for the best.”
“Hmm. Good call,” she said, laughing. Then she abruptly grew serious. “I’m sorry about Brendan.”
“Me too,” I said.
“You just can’t trust seventh-grade boys. Too immature.”
I grinned, but inside I knew she was wrong. It was putting your trust in Truth you had to worry about.
Stepping onto the bus with my cursed backpack (that had been ceremoniously presented to me by Harold after Dad fixed it), I eyed Megan sitting near the back. She sat by herself, but she leaned across the entire seat, deep in conversation with an eighth grader who sat across the aisle. I could tell she had seen me because she glanced my way out of the corner of her eye.
Charity saw me pause, and pulled me down into the seat next to her. She tried to include me in her friends’ conversation. They talked about turning sixteen soon and being able to drive so they wouldn’t have to take public school transportation anymore.
“Saves on gas,” I said. From the looks I got, I knew Charity was beginning to regret letting me sit next to her. “But you can all get your own cars!” I squealed. That put them back on track.
I had been hoping the pink color of my hoodie would brighten my mood, but I skulked toward the school building with dragging feet. It was cloudy out. The weather was copying my demeanor, and that made me even angrier. As I walked, large, cold, heavy rain drops began to fall. I looked up at the sky. Can’t you be original? Be your own person! I thought, internally shouting at the atmosphere. Then I felt bad because of global warming—if a bully like that was picking on me, I’d need a full day to cry too.
I allowed my rolling backpack to thump loudly on the stairs, the plastic crackling piercingly against the cement. Today, I liked the sound.
“Have a good day, Tru!” Charity yelled after me.
I waved and stayed the course to the locker room, to rid myself of my satisfyingly loud bag. Then I marched back down the hallway. I was a woman betrayed, deceived, and scorned. I was on a mission to have a rare, colorful, sparkling diamond kind of day.
Down at the other end of the hallway, I could see Megan standing at our locker. As if sensing me coming, she shut the door and began walking in the opposite direction. Had I known before that Megan was acting distant because she liked Brendan, too, I wouldn’t have made such a big deal over him. Talk about trust! While I told her everything, she withheld information that could have saved our friendship. Instead, she chose to keep it inside and then bash my head against the bricks when she had a chance to pounce and conquer. I couldn’t find it in my heart to hold a grudge against Brendan. Indubitably, it was wrong of him to ask me to write his paper, but I’d agreed to it. I had no one to blame but myself for that.
Indubitably. What a great word, I thought. I rolled it in my mouth, liking the workout it gave my tongue. I bet Megan never got to that word in her stupid dictionary. Tossing my books in my locker, I headed to Band, ready to shine.
I didn’t shine. I stank. I couldn’t get my mouth to fit to my trumpet, or my trumpet to work with my mouth (either way, it was a mess). No one had said anything to me, but I was worried that everyone knew I was wearing a back brace. So I avoided talking to anyone, even the people beside me who I was generally friendly with, and just focused on the music. Nothing helped. I blew. Usually, I left Band with a feeling of accomplishment, but when the bell rang today, it was a relief to put my trumpet back in its case.
People pushed and shoved more than usual on the way out of class. One kid, leaping through the river of students like a gazelle, pushed me in the back to get by. When his hand connected with my brace, he shouted “Ow!” but continued to run. I was glad he didn’t stop to find out what had been so hard against his knuckles.
I scooted as closely as I could to the wall, and kept my arms tight to my sides. Keep out of my bubble. Keep out of my bubble. I silently willed my peers to keep a safe distance. Behind me, I heard Brendan’s cheerful, strident voice.
“And then my mom actually put a belt on me and made me cinch it up. She didn’t want me to be a ‘victim of the saggy pants syndrome.’”
Megan’s annoying laugh pierced through the crowd, reminiscent o
f a little lap dog’s yapping, and my ears rang with jealousy and fury. I clenched my fists, shoved them ruthlessly into the large front pocket of my sweatshirt, and speed-walked to my locker. I didn’t want to still be there fumbling with my books and pencil bag when Megan and Brendan came up arm in arm, grinning goofily from ear to ear.
I grabbed my algebra book and scuttled off to the classroom, earlier than I’d been all year. I was one of the first few in the room, and I thumped into my seat, pinching the left side of my butt between my plastic brace and the plastic chair.
“Ouch!” I shouted involuntarily.
Miss Peters looked up from her desk. “Are you all right?”
“Yep,” I said, sitting forward and discreetly trying to rub the skin. “One of those days, I guess.”
She smiled. “We all suffer through those, don’t we?”
I smiled back and opened my book to the chapter we were on, pretending to be reading it as the rest of the class filtered into the room.
Miss Peters started the lesson off with overhead notes. We were going to be solving equations with polynomials in them. I was excited about it (as excited as one can get about math) because I liked ending up with an answer. It was nice to have a certainty in life—even if it was a simple math problem.
“These won’t be simple,” Miss Peters said. “We’re going to take our time with them and go through the explanation in the book in class since I’m aware none of you actually read it.”
A few people giggled, but Miss Peters’ stern stare shut them up.
“Now, let’s see. Brendan, will you read the first section for us?”
Brendan immediately began to flip through the pages. “Sorry. What page did you say it was?” He’d had his book opened to the right page. He let the pages fall slowly as he said, “241, 243, 244.”
“We don’t have time for this. Sherrie, will you read from page 364?”
Miss Peters looked at her book and followed along with Sherrie, but I kept my gaze on her. When she looked up from the book, she watched Brendan. Her eyes closed slightly as she assessed him. I was worried she was going to call on him to read next, but she didn’t.
We got through the two sections pretty quickly, and then Miss Peters gave us notes to take and explained them as we went through, putting the equations on one side. The equations were complicated. They took focus. There wasn’t only one way to solve them; there were options. I started to see them as a metaphor for my current situation—even though I felt like my life was ruined, maybe I still had options.
By Gym, my mood had improved and I thought maybe Mr. Landers was right—maybe it could be a diamond day—but the second I loosened the last strap on my brace, I realized I didn’t have someone to help me put it back on after class. Megan wasn’t speaking to me. She’d rather have me suffer through the day with a loose, clanking brace than help me. My only other hope was Charity—if I went to the office and told someone I needed her help, they’d page her classroom. I hoped.
We played “hoccer” in Gym. It was exactly like soccer, only it was played inside with a giant exercise ball in lieu of a soccer ball. And we had to take our shoes off and just wear socks, so as not to pop the ball. What followed was a presentation of junior high girls’ clumsiness and lack of hand-eye coordination, and the ball bounced off peoples’ heads and into other peoples’ faces. I wondered if Mrs. Tomjack didn’t make us play this awful game for her own entertainment, or as revenge for having to put up with hormone-filled, high-tempered preteens. She was laughing her head off, and I swear I saw her wipe a jovial tear from her eye as the ball rebounded off another girl’s mug.
One unfortunate girl, one of Jenny’s friends, swung her leg back for what looked to be a monumental game-ending kick, but the ball bounced just as her leg went up, and she fell flat on her back, whiffing the ball completely.
“Swing and a miss!” a girl on her team said, and they all laughed. The girl who had fallen sat up and rubbed her tailbone. She wasn’t laughing. I imagined that’s how it would be for me soon enough. Everyone standing around me and laughing.
Hadn’t Jenny told her friends about my back brace? I’d figured it would be the talk of the school by now. But I’d heard nothing about it.
As the game was winding down, I asked to be excused to go to the restroom, and ran straight to the office instead of the locker room. I asked one of the secretaries if I could have my sister called out of class—it was an emergency. She asked for my sister’s name, and I told her.
“I love Charity! She sometimes stops by to say good morning to us here in the office. You’re her sister?”
“Yes,” I said, suddenly trying to sound more polite. “She said you’re all really nice.”
“What a sweetheart.”
I don’t know if she meant me or my sister, but she dialed the number of a classroom I assumed was Charity’s, so I was happy.
Charity ran to the office—actually ran. She opened the door out of breath. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
The secretary pointed at me. I smiled and waved at her as I pulled Charity into the hallway.
“I need you to help me put my brace on,” I said.
“That’s not an emergency!” she said.
“It is to me.”
Charity sighed. “Fine. Come on.”
She led the way toward the locker room. We still had a few minutes before the other girls would be excused to change clothes too.
“Isn’t Megan here today?”
“Yes,” I said, with a snarl.
“Why can’t she do it?”
“She won’t talk to me. Apparently, she and Brendan are inseparable now,” I said, oozing faux cheerfulness. “And even though study hall is Brendan-free, she still won’t help out her former best friend.”
“Former? Don’t let a lame guy end your friendship. You two are too close to let that happen.”
“Tell her that.”
Charity just shook her head as we headed into the locker room. “Nice socks, by the way.”
“Hoccer.”
That was the only word she needed. Charity had undergone the bruising and bloody noses associated with the infamous game. “If only everyone didn’t take it so darn seriously!”
“I know!” I said. “We were practically doing cartwheels and backflips in there, just to hit a gigantic rubber ball through a tiny net!”
“It’s fun, isn’t it?” Charity said.
“Probably the best day of P.E. we’ve had all year.”
She laughed as she helped me get my brace situated on my hips. “Hopefully no one will get a black eye this year.”
“Not me. Not today, anyway. I’m having a bad enough day as it is.”
“It’ll get better, Tru.”
Charity offered to help again if I needed her and then headed up to her class to get her books before the bell rang. I sat and struggled with my tennis shoes, lifting my ankle onto the opposite leg and tying the shoelace sideways, as I waited for the rest of the girls from my Gym class to come in and change.
A locker clanged, making me jump. I thought I had been alone.
“You didn’t have to run out yesterday.” Jenny stood there in her jeans and a sports bra. I didn’t say anything. She put her shirt on. “You know, my mom and my grandma both had surgery for scoliosis. It’s kind of a miracle I don’t have it.”
Of course, perfect Jenny Henderson wouldn’t get scoliosis when it’s a hereditary disease. Her perfect genes probably murdered the one gene that carried it.
“Lucky you,” I said.
“Seriously. I know all about it. It sucks to hear this, but I feel bad for you.”
“Um, thank you?” That was clearly not a compliment.
“Look, I’m just saying I understand what you’re going through. I’ll help you if you want. I could help with your brace from now on. Then you won’t have to run to the bathroom.”
“You knew—”
“After I knew you wore a brace, I figured out that’s w
hat you were doing when you were leaving early all the time. I mean, football pads? Of all the lame excuses in the world. You’ve got to be a better liar than that.”
As good of a liar as you? I thought. I still hadn’t ruled out the possibility she had told her friends, or would soon—just waiting for the perfect time to pounce.
“I guess it depends on the lie,” I said, thinking of Brendan’s unwritten essay. I hesitated, wanting to ask the one question of which I was afraid of the answer. “Jenny, will you please not tell anyone I wear a brace?”
She smiled a sincere, genuine smile. “Of course not. I’m impressed by your ability to hide it.”
“Thanks,” I said. To me, that was a compliment.
I’d seen her smile in such a genuine way before, when she’d dragged my rolling backpack to the locker room for me the first day I used it. I’d always thought that Jenny would throw anyone under a bus if it would make her look better, but now I was questioning that assessment. After all, she hadn’t told anyone about my brace. I didn’t know if I could trust her, but for the time being, I had to.
“You know, I pretended to be sick and went home the day after I put sand in your locker.” Her gaze fell to the floor when I looked up in surprise. “I felt so guilty about it I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t want to have to face you.”
I felt my shoulders tense up and then release. “I thought you were acting fishy for a while,” I said. After a pause, a knowing smile crossed her lips, and then we both laughed.
“I’d say tuna is way worse than sand,” Jenny said.
“Whatever,” I said, shaking my head. “Every time I grab my shoes, a few grains of sand fall out. It’s like you robbed an entire beach.”
We continued to laugh, and I was surprised at how great it felt to be laughing with Jenny.
“Well, I threw that shirt away,” she said. “So let’s call it even.” She walked with me into the hallway. I said I had to use the bathroom, so we parted ways.
I wanted to see if Megan had actually waited for me in the third stall. She hadn’t.
I don’t know what made me think she’d be waiting for me, but I was still devastated to find out she wasn’t there. Didn’t she care about what might happen to me if I couldn’t put my brace back on?
